I have been using these tools for a long time now, so today I decided to give them a plug here These are the most important tools which I use at least once a day to safe guard my inbox from spam, which by the way has not been very successful at the moment.

BugMeNot: This is a really thoughtful idea by its creators. I am sure that you have visited sites that require you to download anything or even to view what the page is about. Registering on these sites are extremely foolish and time consuming for things as small as a download. Most of them require you to have a valid email id and stuff which I deem as a pain in the neck 😀 As per their site:

You’re browsing the web and you click a link to an article on a site (let’s say nytimes.com) but instead of getting the article you get a screen asking you to login or register. Infuriated at the idea of pointlessly registering for yet another site you turn to your good buddy bugmenot.com

So what BugMeNot does is to collect usernames and passwords submitted by users themselves for other users who then can bypass compulsory registration to access the site. This is a time saver for me since I can always look up if they have credentials to the sites I need to login to by searching with the required site name. What makes this even easier to use is the Firefox extension, which makes is as simple as right-click >> Login with BugMeNot. 😀 Goodbye useless, pointless registrations!

10 Minute Mail: This as the name suggests gives you access to a temporary email address that will self destruct in 10 minutes, which is of course expandable with another, well 10 minutes 😀 While on the surf mode, have you come across sites that require your email id to send you an ebook? Or a site which requires you to refer a friend to gain access to something? 10 Minute Mail can help!

If you are registering for some uselessly entertaining site, using this email id can save you from potential SPAM and other stuff and also give you anonymity if you desire.

I usually use this site for getting those elusive ebooks, for registering at pointless sites and then give away those logins to BugMeNot! That way, I am getting and giving back to the community of good people who want Internet to be a better place. 😀

I am interested in knowing if you guys use any of these services or others which are better and make Internet a better place. Do you. Do leave your comments! By the way, if you didn’t know already, comments are in AJAX. Faster comments now without refresh! Do try it out 😉